The happiest couples focus on do's, not don'ts. Rather than just steering clear of negative interactions, they actively work to build positivity into their relationships. They show what psychologists call an "approach orientation," moving toward what's good, rather than moving away from what's bad.

Traditionally, couples research has focused more on minimizing negatives (arguments, emotional distance, infidelity) than on maximizing positives.

But a new wave of research is changing all that. Positivity-oriented psychologists find that maintaining a favorable balance of positive to negative emotions helps people—and relationships—thrive.

"We've already learned about all the toxic stuff that harms relationships," says psychologist Dacher Keltner, author of Born to Be Good. "There's a whole new science of how to build in good emotions."

Positivity has a way of shifting our perspective: While negative emotions shut us down, positive emotions open us up. They help us "broaden and build," argues Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Positivity.

"Finding ways to inject humor and lightness into a difficult situation is not merely a distraction," says Fredrickson, "It actually helps people see possibilities."

Partners stuck in a "one-note song" should move towards greater positivity by seizing "micro-opportunities" to connect, she says.

Positive emotion is about more than just having fun—it includes gratitude, inspiration, and curiosity.

When participants do a "loving-kindness meditation," a form of meditation focused on generating warm and tender feelings toward others, the quotient of positive emotions in their lives increases, which in turn boosts relationship satisfaction, Frederickson has found.

In fact, just setting more positive goals for your relationship can make you happier as a couple. Couples who seek to increase the good in their relationships, concentrating on sharing fun and meaningful experiences together, promoting growth and development in the relationship, and creating satisfaction and intimacy ("approach-oriented goals"), fare better than couples focused on ducking the negatives ("avoidant-oriented" goals), says Emily Impett, a researcher at UC Berkeley.

You may not always achieve all the positives you seek—but it's enough to realize that positivity is important and to set goals reflecting that.

The payoff is great: more fun, more growth, better sex, and more sustained intimacy.

Love, on the other hand, is more powerful than passion.Love illuminates all aspects of our relations between men and women, parents and child, friends and, ideally, between nations.

Sometimes in the rec()~ nition of one spirit by another there is a sudden spark kindling an inspiration which may last a lifetime.

Love never destroys. It is trusting like a child, tender Iik a lover, and tough like a mother.

Love knows no barriers, no age limits. For me, love implies the ability to accept the person just as she is. Love understand respects, and is always willing to wait. Love list and love then gives.

Love is also joyful and, at tilll exquisitely and quietly humorous. Love can l) in many different guises, but when love belween man and a woman overflows into passion, the relationship is restored and re-created again and again. The marriage is then truly blessed.

By reporting the reality of some men's fantasies and appetites as they are experienced and acted upon, Miss Hite may perhaps unintentionally free other men from the overly restrictive shackles placed upon them in childhood.

Unfortunately, boys were often taught to conform to what was thought to be a necessary social norm by those who considered any deviations to be wicked.

Fortunately, the same principle of conformity that constricts boys can liberate men. Reading this book, they may accept the license offered by a new conformity: ''If they can do it, I can do it, too.''

The danger is that men who perform acts of sexuality not for the pleasure of contact but to express anger, vengeance, rebellion or to dispel feelings of inadequacy may also read ''The Hite Report on Male Sexuality'' as a justification.

Both the renewing and affirming sexuality that connects and soothes, and the isolating sexuality that alienates and repels can take the same outward form.

And though some of the narratives hint at the difference between loving sex and alienating sex, the outward form of sexuality remains Miss Hite's consistent emphasis.

During the past 30 years, the great debate about sexuality has seemed to center on a confusion between love and the sexual act.

To the degree that this book adds more weight and evidence to the conclusion that loving expressions of sexuality can take many forms, it will be valuable to the reader - so long as he is not an amateur in loving, an art that ''The Hite Report on Male Sexuality'' does not address.

About Me

Ardent family orientated bloke,love my family lots.
Love Australia my Beautiful adopted country, but remember passionately my home village, Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, England. My favourite friends would include several shipmates I am in close contact with who served with me while in the British Royal Navy ..going back a fair bit.
There is also the silence of my age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it - in words intelligible to those who have not lived-the great range of my life.
Vest.GSM, LSGCM, WM, B/PM, ITM, UNM, K-N M, EOW M, Asia- PAC M. ROYAL NAVY 25yrs, Retired.